Thursday, November 22, 2007

A Flag Of Many Colors

Had a good time with my girlfriend's family today, and will with mine soon. Hope you had a good time with yours.

Thanksgiving, aka Thxgvng, is a good time to think about the Indians. When someone brings that up, we might think of them in the impersonal sense. And as a whole. Like, "oh right, the ones we slaughtered, TJ by us," and then we move on. But if you can, try to find some of the first-hand accounts of battles between settlers and Indians. There are plenty, told from both sides.

As Americans, we're taught about historical events when we're very young. We might learn more about them later in life, but a lot of people don't. I'm talking about things like happened in the last few centuries. When you're six years old, and you learn about George Washington, he seems like a symbol. You can't relate to him in a human way. But had you been born two hundred years earlier, he could've been your neighbor's dad. So, now that you're older, think about looking into some of this historical stuff. It blows my mind that the New York Times reported on the Civil War as it was happening, right there, in our country, a few hundred miles away.

And this stuff with the Indians--it was only a few generations ago. Imagine if your relatives were driving across the country, and you got a text message from them that went "Injns attax, wil try 2 go round, but may hve 2 fite." And then remember how that would pale in comparison to "crzy peple with ghost-skin & magic fire-deth-stix killng us all, takng our land. ttyl."

This post is dedicated to my ancestor, the Native Canadian who had an "8" in her name.

Nice post, Jere. We live in a land of privilege, but it came at a terrible, terrible price.

Now, when we're doing our Christmas shopping, let's buy one less useless piece of crap for the kids and think about the Iraqis, the Sudanese, the other countless people in the world who know there's a 50/50 chance when they leave their houses in the morning they won't be coming home...or can't leave their houses AT ALL>